{"id":79093,"date":"2025-11-21T05:10:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=79093"},"modified":"2025-11-21T05:10:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:10:51","slug":"us-lawmakers-query-nigerias-cpc-status-cite-rising-attacks-on-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/11\/21\/us-lawmakers-query-nigerias-cpc-status-cite-rising-attacks-on-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"US Lawmakers Query Nigeria\u2019s CPC Status, Cite Rising Attacks on Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The United States House Subcommittee on Africa on Thursday held a hearing on President Donald Trump\u2019s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), over alleged religious freedom violations.<\/p>\n<p>Chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, the session featured senior US State Department officials and Nigerian religious leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers reviewed the implications of the CPC label, including potential sanctions and limits on certain categories of US assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. John James, a former Africa Subcommittee chairman, said the redesignation was justified, arguing that violence against Christians in Nigeria has reached crisis levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNigeria is facing one of the gravest religious freedom crises in the world,\u201d he said, noting that nearly 17,000 Christians have been killed since 2019.<\/p>\n<p>He blamed Boko Haram, ISWAP and armed Fulani groups for the attacks, accusing authorities of failing to intervene and allowing \u201can atmosphere of impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>James also linked religious persecution to political repression, citing the continued detention of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu despite a 2022 Court of Appeal ruling ordering his release.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that Kanu \u201cremains in solitary confinement\u201d and was \u201cconvicted on all charges\u201d earlier in the day.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to questions, Senior Bureau Official Jonathan Pratt said he did not believe jihadist groups had infiltrated the Nigerian government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola The United States House Subcommittee on Africa on Thursday held a hearing on President Donald Trump\u2019s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), over alleged religious freedom violations. Chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, the session featured senior US State Department officials and Nigerian religious leaders. Lawmakers reviewed the implications [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":79094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1724,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insecurity","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79095,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79093\/revisions\/79095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}